While waiting for the introductions to begin, I spent some time checking out the crowd. The first thing I immediately noticed was that unless there was someone who I hadn’t seen or was so passable as to be completely undetectable, I was the sole transperson there. This was at least partially confirmed for me when I asked some of the HRC folks directly if, in fact, I was the only transperson attending this event. None of them seemed to know of any other transpeople who had been invited or were expected to attend.

Remember, this is the organization that, for a decade and a half has been claiming that it is ‘educating’ Congress on trans issues.

I expressed my interest to Fred Sainz in asking Joe Solmonese a question or two, but although he was all around the press pit area escorting honorees to the stage, it didn’t happen. I can’t say for certain if it was intentional or if it simply just happened to work out that way coincidentally, but Solmonese seemed to give the area where I was standing a pretty wide berth, never coming close enough for me to attempt to ask him a question. Given what I’ve written about Joe Solmonese in print and said about him on my show, I’m neither surprised nor offended by this, even if it was intentional. Were I him, I probably would have avoided me too.

I’m not going to excerpt Becky’s story about one particular asshole that she had to deal with (though it certainly is HRC in microcosm), but I want to share this:

Throughout the evening I felt like a visitor to a foreign country, a land I could visit and explore only as an outsider, not as someone who truly belonged there. I was welcomed by most of the natives, but I also learned that there would always be some who just didn’t want someone like me in their space.

So what does this mean for my own perception of the Human Rights Campaign and the people who work for and with this organization? I think they’re trying. They’re making an effort to reach out to the rest of us, but they still haven’t quite worked out just how to best go about doing that.

Inviting a transgender blogger and commentator to one of their events as press is a good beginning….

I guess the clock on my computer is wrong.

It says Feb. 9, 2011.

Inviting a transgender blogger and commentator to one of their events as press would be “a good beginning” if it were 1996. Not surprisingly, this folds directly into another post currently up at Bilerico, which asks the musical question:

But if you ask that question rhetorcally and cannot come up with any better ‘answers’ than:

Be a friend. Be there for your transgender friends. 57% of respondents report some form of family rejection. Why not open your home and hearts?

Work with your employer to establish policies that protect transgender people from harassment such as creating gender neutral bathrooms, benefits that help pay for transitioning, and management development opportunities.

If you own your own business, hire a qualified transgender person this week.

Work with local police departments to do sensitivity training about transgender people.

Calling all lawyers! Volunteer at local prisons. Identify transgender people and donate your time to advocate for them.

then you’re engaging in fraud by pretending to give a shit when you ask the question.

If you own your own business, hire a qualified transgender person this week.

How about: If you’re a gay organization that claims to give a shit about whether trans people live or die, hire the qualified trans law and policy professionals that you know damn good and well are out there and that you know damn good and well are seeking work in the LGBT law and policy field yet who haven’t ever been hired in no small part because even the garbage-spewing Quisling who has conned America into believing that she speaks for trans people takes up for Gay, Inc.’s (career-)exterminationist pattern of refusing to hire trans women.

I think it is very complex and probably a mix of sexism as well as ageism and a bias against people switching careers and a preference for people with movement employment experience. I think it is mostly not overt or conscious, but some is straight up discrimination.

I know that when we get resumes, the transwomen who apply are generally older than the transmen who apply–many are mid-career people who may have volunteer activism experience, but are looking for employment very different from their resumes.

Strange how that perfectly describes the irrelevant experience that Allyson Robinson brought to her token position at the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool a few months later – even while numerous trans women (and men; yes, trans men need to be hired too; but Gay, Inc.’s policy regarding trans men is only egregiously discriminatory; its policy against trans women is murderous) with years of relevant experience were never even considered for gainful employment in the organization that claims to be the tool for educating Congress on trans-everything.

But HRC is only the overly-engorged rat sunning itself atop the maggot-infested heap of worthlessness known as Gay, Inc. The others are no better when the issue of actually hiring actual trans people rears its ugly employment apartheid head.

And why should they be?

Calling all lawyers! Volunteer at local prisons.

How about hiring trans lawyers – who can do such things on the clock.

You know…

Like almost no trans person is able to do anything?

Whether you agree with the content of this site – in whole or in part – or not, do understand one thing: This, like almost all trans policy content that you will find, is done off the clock. Even those of us who have jobs don’t have jobs doing this – and when we do this, it is on our own time and with our own money.

Gay, Inc.?

Those slugs get paid for (as opposed to doing it whilst on the clock at some other gig; for instance, as I type this, I’m officially at work – but at a position in which I am not neglecting anything by spending time typing this) muddying the water and obscuring the real facts – and, of course, making damn sure that gay marriage gobbles up every oxygen molecule (not to mention dollar) in every room in every state, no matter whether gays (not to mention trans people) can work without fear of being fired (or – and I’m pointing at you HRC and NGLTF – never hired in the first instance) because of who they are.

If you own your own business, hire a qualified transgender person this week.

No. If you own your own business – or even if you don’t – call the overpaid, underworked society of self-importance in all its forms – be it HRC or NGLTF or any of the others – and demand that they stop discriminating against trans people in their own employment practices.

See how far you get.

See how many trans people actually end up being hired. In 15 years of claiming to be Congress’s trans-educator, HRC has hired 3 (2 in practical terms, but I’ll go with the ‘official’ number here.) That certinly does educate Congress – and everyone else: If HRC doesn’t have to give a shit, then why should we? In 15+ years of claiming to be the really trans-friendly tentacle of Gay, Inc., NGLTF has hired even less (I personally don’t know of any.) That certinly does educate Congress – and everyone else:If NGLTF doesn’t have to give a shit, then why should we?

By Cristan Williams @cristanwilliams Almost without exception, all news stories covering the

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